The 71st Infantry Division, together with the
295th Infantry Division, was one of the first large formations to reach their destination on the
Volga. Due to the concentric waves of attack on the city center, the wedges of the 71st Infantry Division were greatly thinned out and thus predestined targets for
Soviet snipers. The first target was reached by reaching the ridge around the "brickworks" and the starting position was created for a rapid advance into the city center. In the city of Stalingrad itself, the division quickly became involved in the heavy
house-to-house fighting in the city center and had to learn local combat under difficult combat conditions, which led to heavy losses. October 22, 1942. The 71st Infantry Division pressed the Soviet defending units against the hills of the city and south towards the Tsaritza. At nightfall, IR 194 took Aviagorodok, approached 2 km of the railway line and reached the entrances from Hill 112.5 while IR 211 and 191 pushed the
Red Army into a promontory northwest of the Tsaritza. On September 13, 1942, the 71st Infantry Division advanced with massive air support from
dive bombers in the direction of the main station and the next day they reached the city center of Stalingrad north of the Tsaritza. The struggle for the inner city developed into a merciless and extremely confusing battle, which was fought with great
fanaticism on both sides around the main station, the government and party buildings and the Red Square with mutual successes. In the afternoon, a series of Soviet counter-attacks with the support of 3
Katyusha rocket launcher regiments south of the Razgulyaevka station as far as the Tsaritza were supposed to defuse the situation, as 295. ID and 71. ID were in position just before the city center and the
Mamayev Kurgan. Artillery support and air strikes by more than 60 dive bombers brought the Soviet counter-offensive to a complete standstill at dawn on September 14, 1942. At the same time, Infantry Regiments 194 and 211 broke the resistance of the 42nd Rifle Battalion Batrakov and captured Hill 112.5.
Shock troops from IR 194 broke into the streets of the city center and stood in front of
Stalingrad Central Station at around noon.
Chuikov reported:"Individual groups of
submachine gunners moved east in the Balkas around Hill 112.5, infiltrated the city center from 2 p.m. and stood in front of the main station at 4 p.m." in action during the fighting for the southern station of Stalingrad, September 15, 1942. The rapid advance of the 71. ID seemed to take the
62nd Army completely by surprise and forced them to mobilize all available
reserves and throw them into the decisive battle. Important communication links were cut and supplies were cut off, and yet the German soldiers only reached the Volga for a short time. IR 194 threatened the ferry terminal and sank 2 Volga ferries. The fact that Stalingrad did not fall on September 14, 1942, was among other things owed to the resistance of the
35th Guards Rifle Division in the south of the city, which effectively stopped the
29th Motorized Infantry Division during their advance on the center. The
13th Guards Rifle Division, which arrived on the night of 14 to 15 September 1942, prevented the complete conquest of the city center by reclaiming the streets and buildings (railway depot, state bank) east of the main station and intervening in the battle on the
Mamayev Kurgan. The 1st Battalion from Colonel Elin's 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment occupied the main station again, while Panikhin's
34th GRR failed to take the house of specialists. The combat strength of the 71st Infantry Division was numbered as follows on September 14, 1942: 8 infantry battalions, all in weak condition (300–400 men), 1 engineer battalion (PiBtl. 171) on average (300–400). On September 15, 1942, bitter fighting developed around Stalingrad Central Station against the 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment of the
13th Guards Rifle Division. On the same day, IR 194 continued the fight for the main station and IR 191 and 211 advanced further on the north bank of the Tsaritza. The
24th Panzer Division tried to unite with the 71st ID near the Tsaritza on September 16, 1942, and 3 tanks were mistakenly shot by
PaK guns of the 71st ID. Parts of the IR 194 in association with the
295th Infantry Division fought for possession of the Krutoi and Dolgii-Balka, but without being able to drive the enemy from his well-developed positions. In the center of Stalingrad, the main forces of 71st Infantry Division (IR 194 and 211) rubbed each other in a turbulent, completely chaotic and for both sides confusing battle from house-to-house and street-to-street over a width of 3.5 kilometers with the
13th Guards Rifle Division. The fighting reached its point of culmination on September 16, 1942, in the area around Red Square between IR 194 and 2nd Btl./34th GRR and 2nd Btl./42nd GRR, in particular about the ownership of the massive buildings (Univermag department store, Gorki Theater, party building) that flanked the square as well as the main train station and Kommunisticheskaia Street:“And farther south, the main forces of 71st Division’s 194th Regiment, with the bulk of the division's 211th Regiment on its right, engaged in a swirling and confused street-to-street and building-to-building fight with the bataillons of
13th Guards Rifle Division's 34th and 42nd Regiments in a 3.5-kilometer-wide swath of rubbled buildings and bomb-pocked streets extending from the Dolgii Ravine southward past Railroad Station No. 1 to the Tsaritza River. The heaviest fighting occurred in the vicinity of 9 January Square, where 194th Regiment's lead battalions dueled furiously with 2nd Battalion, 34th Guards Regiment, and 2nd Battalion, 42nd Guards Regiment, for possession of the hulks of buildings flanking the square, and near railroad station, where 1st Battalion, 42nd Guards Regiment, clung resolutely to the station and adjacent ruined buildings around Kommunisticheskaia street.”The 71st Infantry Division was unable to send reinforcements to Kampfgruppe Edelsheim (
24th PD) at their bridgehead at the mouth of the Tsaritza, as all divisions in Stalingrad were tied up in exhausting house-to-house fights with heavy losses. On September 17, 1942, the guardsmen gave up their positions in the main station for the time being and tried again to recapture the house of the specialists in the technicians' building. The fighting over the accesses to the Krutoi and Dolgiischlucht in the north continued, further south IR 211 and 191 with the 34th and 42nd GRR were incessantly fighting for the parks and key buildings along and east of Kommunisticheskaia Street, the firefights around the main station flickered again and the January 9th Square, only 3 blocks away from the Volga, remained a vital defense node of the
62nd Army. When dusk fell, the 1st Btl./42nd GRR penetrated the main train station and all counterattacks on the house of the specialists repulsed. In the evening, the
Red Army again proclaimed victory over the German attack formations at the main station and claimed to have counted 100 dead German soldiers who had fallen on the station premises. Finally, IR 211 was able to unite with the combat groups Hellermann and Edelsheim in the Tsaritza and bring the railway bridge over the river under control. During the night, IR 191 shifted eastwards behind IR 211 and was thus able to intervene together with IR 194 in the battle for the city center. , was located, October 1942. The author
William Craig describes the severity of the fighting for Red Square in September 1942:“In this square the dead lay in grotesque contortions on the lawn and the sidewalks in dark red puddles. The traces of blood from the wounded, who had dragged themselves somewhere else, formed intertwined patterns on the pavement. The 'Univermag' was just an empty ruin. Mannequins riddled with bullets lay all over the place. Dead Germans and Russians, as they had fallen, lay next to each other in the corridors. The whole department store had become a morgue. The '
Pravda' building collapsed during the air raids on August 23, 1942. There was no longer anyone in the houses of the City of Soviets and the Red Army Club or in the Gorky Theater, empty window sockets and ugly black holes yawned in the walls. The shops in the side streets were also no longer open. Rotten tomatoes and mashed watermelons lay on the sidewalks, with parts of human bodies in between, swarmed around by swarms of flies."On September 18, 1942, the Gorokhov group's offensive in northern Stalingrad failed, so that the
6th Army could focus on fighting with the
62nd Army around the
Mamayev Kurgan and the city center. Three regiments were embroiled in a swaying battle with the
13th GRD over the main station and the January 9th Square. Batrakov's 42nd RB withdrew to a defensive position west of the railway on the Tsaritza and thus tied the IR 211 again, which further exacerbated the precarious personnel situation of
Hartmann's division. On September 19, 1942, the 71st Infantry Division changed their fighting technique because the main battle line could no longer be maintained due to the heavy losses and the peculiarities of the terrain of the Balkas, as platoons and companies were reshaped like assault troops in small groups. So it was possible to attack Soviet house fortresses and defense nodes in isolation and break out of the defensive barrier. The landing of parties of the
284th RD on September 19, 1942, significantly relieved the difficult situation for the badly battered 13th GRD in the Stalingrad center and set new forces free. The high losses around Red Square and the main train station had meanwhile increased threateningly. Batrakov's 42nd RB and Afanasiev's 244th RD (fewer than 200 soldiers each) retreated to the ruined houses east of the railway line and around 1 May Square. The entire
62nd Army was in an unstoppable retreat house by house and street block by street block to the Volga during September 19. On September 20, 1942, the 13th GRD only had small isolated “defense islands” east of the main station, 42nd GRR on the left, 39th GRR in the center and 34th GRR on the right flank. The next day the fighting concentrated on local areas in Kommunisticheskaia, Respublinskaia, Krasnopiterskaia, Stalinskaia and Naberezshnaia streets. During the fighting, an
ad hoc combat group (
Kampfgruppe) of around 150 submachine gunners with around 10 assault troops displaced the 1st Btl./42nd GRR from a block east of the main train station and enclosed it halfway in another block on the corner of Krasnopiterskaia/Komsomoskaia Street. In the north, another combat group of 71st Infantry Division broke through the barricades of 2nd Btl./34nd GRR and got to January 9 Square, where it was only stopped by a counterattack from Vologodskaia Street. The 42nd RB and 244th RD fought off several attacks by the IR 211 in Pushkinskaia Street; after the almost complete capture of the grain silo on September 20, 1942, they were the last active fighting troops of the Red Army in the southern part of Stalingrad. On September 21, 1942, the grenadiers were able to successfully take a tactically important group of houses and effectively fight their way into the central ferry terminal in Stalingrad. An unknown participant reported on the final phase of the battle for downtown Stalingrad:“Elite divisions were called in to stop the assault of the 71st. Next to the south station there was a lot of fighting for days over the grain storage facility filled with wheat [captured by the
94th Infantry Division]. In the smoke and stench of the smoldering wheat, each floor had to be conquered individually in the huge concrete block, and there was also the fact that a Soviet defensive position extended from the southern landing of the ferry to the high silo. In the division section, on October 3rd, the enemy forces fighting in the ruins of the house were so much destroyed that further neighboring sections could be taken over."September 22, 1942, brought a renewal of the German attack on the city, against the Dolgiischlucht, the oil refinery and January 9 Square, where the Volgaufer was also reached. The guardsmen lost 200 soldiers and reoccupied Krutoi Gorge, January 9 Square, Naberezshnaia, Solnechnaia, Kurskaia, Orlowskaia, Proletarskaia, Gogolia and Kommunisticheskaia streets. After a week of street fighting, the 13th GRD only had 1,000 combat-ready soldiers; their units consisted almost entirely of small isolated units that had withdrawn in a few bombed-out houses. IR 211 used a sewer ditch to successfully reach the Volga east of the main train station and had to retreat again at night. The 1st Btl./42nd GRR was locked up in the Univermag department store on Red Square and completely destroyed; the left wing of the 13th GRD had already completely collapsed. The unabated pressure of the 71st Infantry Division caused the guardsmen to collapse all along the line. Almost the entire center, with the exception of a few pockets of resistance, had to be abandoned; only a 500 to 1000 meter wide bank could be maintained. According to the Red Army, however, 500 Germans were killed and 43 tanks (presumably
assault guns) destroyed. On September 25, 1942, the 71st Infantry Division was again involved in heavy fighting around the Stalingrad center north of the Zariza Gorge and found itself in a stalemate with the Red Army. North of the Tsaritsa, the 71st Infantry Division took possession of parts of the houses east of the party buildings as far as the Volga. In very bitter street and house-to-house fighting, the
infantrymen won the ground step by step with
flamethrowers,
hand grenades and
explosive charges, and on September 26, 1942, the 71st Infantry Division hoisted the
Reich war flag on the party building on the Red Square. The 71st Infantry Division was the only one of the 6th Army in the entire division width to reach the Volga in the south of Stalingrad at the end of September 1942. The 211 Infantry Regiment was deployed on the right flank of the division between the rivers Zariza and Minina respectively. The units were therefore in well-developed and secure positions for a while, albeit heavily decimated in the city center in the September fighting. Three infantry battalions of the 71st ID were severely exhausted and bloodied (fewer than 300 soldiers each) after the protracted and bloody fighting around the Stalingrad center on September 28, 1942, and by mid-October 1942 all infantry battalions of the 71st ID were already in the state of
hors de combat and no longer able to take the remaining Soviet house-fortresses. From 14 to 26 September 1942, the 71st ID,
295th ID and
389th ID had 1,000 dead, 3,000 wounded and 100 missing. After the fighting in the Stalingrad center had subsided, the 71st Infantry Division broke away from the concentrated attack formation and expanded into wider sections in the defensive positions on the Volga. In doing so, they were largely able to take over the existing Soviet defensive positions. IR 191 was now in the middle of the division between the Tsaritza and Minnina gorges, south of it IR 211 with the border with the
371st Infantry Division and in the north IR 194 following the
295th Infantry Division.
Major General von Hartmann was given overall responsibility for the south and center sectors from the Dolgiischlucht to the Elschanka River on September 27, 1942, after the
94th Infantry Division was withdrawn for the fighting in the north. IR 211 was used from the Elschanka river to Kuporosnoe, IR 191 from the Tsaritza to the Elschanka and IR 194 from the Tsaritza to the Dolgiibalka. However, IR 194 was too weak to make any significant progress against
Pavlov's House and the positions of the Red Army on the banks of the Volga and their fortresses on Krutoi and Dolgii. The impenetrable defenses of
Rodimtsev in a dense network of buildings and fortresses north and south of 9 January Square were unbreakable for a single, severely weakened regiment. From September 28 to October 1, 1942, a series of unsuccessful attacks in multiple company and battalion strengths were carried out in conjunction with the
295th Infantry Division, all of which failed. On October 5, 1942, the combat strength of the 71st Infantry Division worsened to 1 weak (300–400 men) and 7 fully exhausted (300) infantry battalions. Between October 25 and November 1, 1942, the
64th Army launched a counterstrike in the south of Stalingrad, which, however, would be repulsed. During
Operation Hubertus in November 1942, the 71st Infantry Division was only able to carry out smaller raid operations. == Destruction in the Stalingrad pocket in 1943 ==